Caboose

I was in my basement recently, and I was looking at my brother's model train set he was working on. I picked the caboose off the table and put it on the tracks and began to push it back and forth. Then I began to compare the caboose to my life. The caboose is pulled by the steam engines, and it goes where ever the engines go. Many teenagers can be called a caboose. They follow a group and whatever that group does, they do. If someone starts drinking then they are more likely to start drinking too. They are the caboose and they just follow the engine who is the person in charge.

But the caboose can stand on it's own. It can move along the track with the help of an outside force. When I give the caboose a push it travels in the direction I want it to go. If I push it too hard, then it may fall off the tracks, but I can put it right back on. That is how our relationship with God is. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- His good perfect and pleasing will." When we break apart from the world and let God control our lives, great things can happen. When the caboose is following the rest of the train, there are things it could miss out on. The train may pass a track that God wants the caboose to go on, but since it identifies with the train and not God, the caboose misses out on taking that track. But when the caboose let's God control where it goes, the caboose will be able to take the tracks that God wants him to take. If the train does fall off it's tracks, God will be right there to pick it up and put it back on track. This way God can show the caboose the good, perfect, and pleasing will that God has for the caboos's life.

So which caboose are you. . .
-the one who follows the crowd?
OR
-the one who stands alone and follows God?